August 31, 2005

The stigma associated with gays in the Republican Party becomes particularly problematic when it comes to relationships with gay Democrats. The vemon is pervasive on Internet dating sites, such as www.friendster.com and www.myspace.com, where gay profiles are laced with acidic afronts to Republicans, from the guy who dislikes “red states,” to the guy who clarifies in his “Who I Want to Meet” section that he is “not a Republican.” I’ve been stung by that vemon as well, in a more overt manner, by a guy who stood me up after perusing my website, www.doriandavis.com, and who left me waiting at the subway station at Broadway and Houston Street.

I’ve visited a few right-wing dating sites since then and discovered that–unfortunately–the sites labeling themselves as “conservative,” such as www.conservativematch.com and www.conservativematchmaker.com, are exclusive of gay Republicans in a different way: they make no accommodation for same-sex searches on their personals pages, nor do they include specifics about a user’s sexual orientation. There is an underlying assumption that conservative men want to be matched with conservative women, and that conservative women want to be matched with conservative men. The creators of those websites–intentionally or unintentionally–are imposing their viewpoints on appropriate sexuality, and they are excluding the gay Republican.

That oversight is corrected by another popular site, www.republicansingles.com, that provides a space in its search engine in which a user can indicate a preference for same-sex partners. The seemingly-unimportant difference between www.conservativematch.com and www.republicansingles.com is signal of a major differentiation between two branches of the Republican Party, but it’s also signal of a major differentiation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: no where else–not on liberal dating sites, nor on conservative dating sites–can a gay Republican find, nor even search for, his appropriate match. In the end, it’s here–at www.republicansingles.com–that gays can finally “come out” of the intellectual–and the virtual–closet.

Easy

Matt Taibbi, formerly of the NY Press and now of Rolling Stone has this amazing ability to be a total moron and yet sometimes get the story that no one else is getting. His crashing a Wesley Clark meetup back in December ‘03 was just such a story. Now, Tim Blair quotes him on a trip to Crawford:

The movement likes to think of itself as open and inclusive, but in practice it often comes off like a bunch of nerds whose favored recreation is coming up with clever passwords for their secret treehouse. The ostensible political purpose may be ending the war, but the immediate occupation for a sizable percentage of these people always seemed to be a kind of rolling adult tourist attraction called Hating George Bush …

At one point at Camp Casey, an informal poll taken around a campfire revealed that six out of a group of ten protesters, selected at random, believed that the United States government was directly involved in planning the 9/11 bombings. Flabbergasted, I tried to press the issue.

“Do you know how many people would have to be involved in that conspiracy?” I said. “I mean, start with the pilots . . .”

“The planes were flown by remote control,” a girl sitting across from me snapped.

I have really seen this ‘argument’ pick up steam lately. I’ve been seeing 9/11 conspiracy stickers around NYC. A commenter on a liberal site wrote, in relation to a different conversation, ‘That’s so off the wall it’s gotta be true. Since 9/11, I mean.’ It goes back to that step into crazy that hardcore leftists can’t help but take. The fact that people in the world irrationally hate you and would kill you without thinking twice about it is a hard reality to accept. For a liberal, who thinks that two people can understand and accept each other if they just talk out their differences, it’s near impossible. And for a true leftist, who believes that America is always bad and wrong, and that everyone else, particularly brown people, are usually right, the concept that Mohammad Atta would kill you the same way he’d kill George W. Bush, well, it’s just too much. So, it has to be a conspiracy. It can’t possibly be that 19 Muslim men killed 3000 people who were on airplanes and in their offices or having breakfast in a restaurant. Because if that’s true, then they could be dead just the same. And all of their proper, correct opinions about the evil of America and the goodness of everyone else will mean nothing. The plane will fly into their office without ever once considering their politics.

Conspiracies make people feel smart, certainly smarter than the rubes who believe the official story, and if there’s one thing leftists enjoy it’s feeling smarter than everyone else. They let them hold on to prejudices (George W. Bush is the evilest man to ever live. He must’ve had a hand in killing his own citizens, I just know it!). Most of all, they stop them from wanting a real solution to our very real terrorist problem. If Atta and 18 other Middle Eastern men didn’t do it, then there’s no reason to need to change the Middle East, there’s no reason to highten security, the only solution is getting rid of that madman George W. Bush. And, as we all know, it’s much easier to get rid of a democratically elected president whose term ends in 3 years than of a vast network of terrorists who want us all dead. Conspiracy nuts will have their victory in 3 years, even if another Republican is elected. The rest of us will have to wait a lot longer for ours.

August 30, 2005

He’s lucky it was just in the leg

Suge Knight, who was shot in the leg at Kanye West’s party at the Shore Club, snatched a bottle of Hennessey from a fellow partygoer before he took the bullet. Knight was making himself a drink at someone else’s table when a woman told him to stop. The hip-hop thug responded, “Oh, yeah?” and walked off with the bottle.

For sale

I’ve got another Yuri Dvornik painting for sale on ebay. He’s this amazing Russian-American painter who does mostly street scenes. This painting is of a street in SoHo, before 9/11 with the Twin Towers in the background. It’s really beautiful. I have a similar one by him on my wall.

Who are you people?

I thought the flasher story I posted yesterday was a bi-partisan, ‘you go, girl’ kind of situation, where we can all agree that flashing is bad. Reading through the comments the picture-taker is getting, I can see I was wrong. My personal favorites are the ‘you stupid Americans, we Europeans frequently grope ourselves on the metro’ comments:

*Why are you trying to prosecute him?
Did he violate your rights in any way? Do you have a right to avoid seeing things that you don’t like? Do you hate human sexuality? Are you a repressed Christian, is that why you’re doing this?
I don’t know why you feel violated, and why you want to “protect” other women from your experience. He was a man doing what all men do. There’s nothing wrong with that. You and the police that are the only ones here violating rights.

*Not that what this guy did was not distasteful, but really, are you hurt? Were you raped? Hit? Cut? Exposed to disease? “Violated” is terribly strong language for what in the grand scheme of things is nothing at all.

*Why would anyone be thinking about this for a whole week? It’s not traumatising to see a penis, what is she, twelve? has she never seen one before? yeah the guy was beating off at her but you wouldn’t be pissed off and thinking about it for a whole week. If anything you would be telling it to your friends and joking about it.

*So friendly_chic407, when did you realize you were a lesbian?

*My parents were burned at the stake for their non-puritan beliefs. Seriously, until every dog shits in it’s own home then I will proudly condone masturbating in public.

*All this fuss about a man showing his —-?? America is not the world. It happens worldwide with females being the biggest culprits of exhibitionism. Only in America.

*Although I definately agree that what the guy did is unacceptable behavior, I have to say I think this is going a bit overboard. With this being picked up by the media, the guy will be made into a social outcast. That is definitely more damaging than what he did. I’m personally sick of the attitude that it is wrong for someone to do anything you don’t like. Again, I agree that it is innappropriate to do this, but the guy might need a bit of help or counseling, not a cruxifiction. Your actions (posting this on flickr) are, in my opinion, are as reprehensible as his. I’m sure you’ve caused him much more damage than your discomfort. Congratulations….

*ok, see no one would care over here in europe!
so what, he is not hurting anyone, you all need to take the stick outta your asses and stop being so prude!
if you dont like it, GET UP AND MOVE THE FUCK ON, god 40 years ago it would be a picture of a black man on a train, 30 years ago a homosexual, and today a “pervert” give it up….hes just an exibitionist, thats been goin on for years…

*OH MY GOD! THAT GUY HAS A PENIS! WHAT A SENSATION! HE MUST BE JAILED OR – BETTER – HANGED! You, americans, are so fun – “Oh, i was so traumatised, oh i want him to pay my valium bills, oh i can’t ride a subway for 10 years since”. When some of you, fat girls, going around with barenaked bellybuttons (fat) with pubic hair sticking over the pants – THAT is traumatic!

It’s hard to be a flasher these days

As most of you fellow web junkies may have heard already, a woman in NY had a man expose himself to her on the train and she snapped his photo with her camera phone and posted it on the internet. It looks like the suspect has been identified and it’s the co-owner of a vegetarian raw foods restaurant mini-chain in NY. I had been wanting to try the place but because of my all-meat-eating-all-the-time boyfriend, had not. So, thanks for that, Peter.

Me, me, me

I’ve made a couple of small changes to my ‘About Me’ post (though I really hated changing the age on the seldomly updated page). If you’ve ever wondered whether I’ve lived on a commune, when ‘Hoist the Black Flag’ airs (we’re having Greg Gutfeld on this week so do find out) or what I actually do for a living, something resembling answers can be found on that page.

August 28, 2005

Abortion should be rare. Can we agree on that?

Commenter Jay sent me a link a few days ago about the staggering number of abortions in Russia. How staggering? They now have more abortions than births. Ivan quotes the article’s explanation as partly financial: ‘Careers traditionally favored by Russian women, such as in education and medicine, no longer pay a decent salary.’ No longer? C’mon. My mother was teacher and my father was a doctor in Russia, I know that these professions never paid a decent salary.

Ambivablog has a corresponding post about how lightly some women in America take abortion. I think attitude goes a long way to explain what’s going on in Russia. Sure, there are circumstances, such as financial or emotional considerations, that may lead so many Russian women to have abortions but I wonder what role plain acceptance plays in that culture.

True story: I was 17 and over my friend’s place. Her mom was hanging out with us as we discussed another girl we knew having a child. Her mom said ‘why didn’t she have an abortion? What is it with girls these days that they think their child is the special child that should be born when they themselves are so young? There will be other pregnancies, why can’t they just wait? I had 5 abortions before having _____, and she’s had two already.’ (’She’ being her daughter, my 17-year old friend).

Whoa dude. TMI.

Since then, I’ve heard open, frank abortion discussion from Russian women I barely know: ‘Yeah, I had one and then I got pregnant again right after that so I had another one.’ ‘No, she decided to get an abortion and wait until after he gets the promotion.’ ‘If we stay in NY I’ll keep it, but I’m not moving to Miami and having a baby in the next year.’ Russians are the only people I’ve heard actually be pro-abortion and unapologetically so.

So that’s my take. A culture where abortion is totally ok and not at all stigmatized is a culture that will end up encouraging abortion. Maybe there are people who don’t think that’s so bad, but even at my most militantly pro-choice, I couldn’t imagine that perspective.